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MACKAY businesses have been through some tough times, but things are looking up.

"Overall business confidence in Mackay is very buoyant and there are a lot of reasons to be very positive to be in business in Mackay," Mackay Chamber of Commerce chairwoman Kylie Porter said.

"We're in a very dynamic area and I think all business owners would much rather be in business in Mackay at the moment than in other places in Australia and in the world."

With digital dependence increasing, Ms Porter said there was potentially room for the IT and digital sector to continue to grow.

"There's possibly some real capacity in Mackay for some more food and hospitality type businesses," she said.

"Those resources are currently stretched to the max."

There were some sectors in Mackay that continued to do it tough such as retail, which attracted a lot of competition from online, Ms Porter said.

"The world is now a very small place in terms of doing retail shopping," she said.

"That's going to remain a challenge.

"However, while interest rates remain on hold or in a downward direction, I think that consumer confidence is going to return."

The overall strength of Mackay's business sector complements a new report that shows Queensland is leading the nation when it comes to business confidence.

The NAB Quarterly Business Survey, released last Thursday, revealed Queensland's confidence over the December quarter was at 12 points, well ahead of any other state or territory, with South Australia the next best on 2 points.

Deputy Premier and Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the report was one more in a long line of recent good news for the Queensland economy.

"The index shows that confidence in our state is ahead of all other states which is great news for Queensland," Mr Fraser said.

"It also shows that business conditions were the second highest in Australia at four points and that Queensland had recorded a large improvement in conditions."